Soviet Log 31
The Gulag Battle Ends... In Victory! We picked up the action mid-battle near the supply hut, cloaked in darkness, after scaring away the twin-witch mercenaries. There were a lot of commands being thrown around as we began but we eventually zeroed in on the radio tower and spotlights as priorities. Eva conquered both a spotlight (with an 18-hex range that might be tops in the party) and then the resulting critiques on her life-choices from the rest of the party. Mei Linn cut around the other side of the hut and joined up with our prison-shift in a bold charge toward the radio tower building. Well, it would have been bold except for the devastating Acid Missile volley that melted half of the group to slag and left Mei Linn scrambling. Katya and Roquette stuck by the hut and went to work on the robo-dog. While Roq held the door Katya spider-walked over them both into the hut to see if the twins were hiding in there, but a none-too-convincing Perception Check revealed that the hut was empty. Katya moved in on the robo-dog, which still couldn't hit the Defendy Roquette while she continued her largely ineffective Can-Can Routine, (did 3PD, Woo!), and finished it off with a devastating dual-weapon flurry. Logger's note; it was all made possible by Roq's superior tactical play and metaphorical-logistical support, (especially the Door-Holding part!). Most of the rest of the round was spent running toward the southern Barracks, half of us were going for the western one and the other half for the eastern. Or at least that was the plan until the chaos of battle had other ideas. Eva had continued to fire at targets of opportunity but ran into trouble when a barracks-drone activated and laid into her with a burst leaving her with scraps for armor and little ability to dodge. Concerned about further missile volleys, she pushed her way toward the easter barracks with a group of prisoners in-tow. Luckily for Eva though, the missile battery was aiming at a different target. In the first of two remarkably accurate shots, Katya and the nearby group of K'nyans were blasted with missiles; a few K'nyans managed to defend along with Katya but they got the message to spread out pretty clearly. Unfortunately, while madly running toward the barracks they were hit again with uncanny precision. Double unfortunately, it was a CRITICAL volley doing a total of 80 DR, (from 4 sources). Nobody defended this time. After the smoke cleared, all that was left was a severely injured (1DC) Katya crouched among the smoldering remains of half a dozen K'nyans. After a bit of overly-photogenic weeping Roq gallantly changed course and charged ahead to heal Katya, and restored her to half her DC, (when she eventually caught up). Meanwhile, Mei Linn had worked her way up to the south-west barracks and hit the radio tower with a devastating disintegrate that left it gooey and vulnerable. In short order our allies (spiders, Kynyan and prisoners) made short work of it so there was no longer any danger of a distress message being sent, (too late, we later determined :( ). The spiders then pressed onto the other barracks and their dangerous missile batteries while Mei Linn and the others went to work clearing the barracks itself. After the radio tower and two southernmost missile batteries were destroyed/abandoned, we were concerned to see the camp's vehicles starting up, then relieved when it became apparent that they fleeing the camp! It was Danika and the witch-twins fleeing with a huge stockpile of salvage and a handful of guards. With that much salvage pre-loaded it was clear that they had been planning for this opportunity somehow, but it was unclear on how much Danika knew of our plans ahead of time or if it was just opportunistic. Either way, a large part of the Gulag's firepower had just fled, leaving us in good shape against the remaining defences. In short order, the remaining defenders surrendered and the camp was ours! We gathered up the prisoners, guards, and camp loot and set about figuring out what to do next. Some of the prisoners wanted blood so we let them take it out on the guards (not the two captured commanders, though) but some took it too far with a female guard so Eva administered some hot justice. Roq quickly claimed the drone-commander's Exo-suit but its Armor level was too high to be compatible with her cybernetics without some re-configuring. Some of us also grabbed rifles or Stun batons and divvied up the massive loot stockpile of 200k mystic and 100k each of implant, weapon, and equipment salvage. We took some time to organize the camp, which took a block. It culminated in the best group Beguile yet with all of us scoring in the 26-29 range. The camp was rightly motivated and organized after that! Next, we figured we had about a block before counter-attack arrived (unfortunately they had, in fact, sent a distress message before we destroyed the tower) so Eva set about building vehicles with the other engineer-prisoners. The rest of us did our own thing but made noises about being helpful. We ended the session about 2.5 hours into the block when our lookouts reported an incoming group of vehicles. It was Spetznatz special forces! The second battle of the Gulag was about to begin. Rewards 3 Mystic Katya and 1 Benny 1 Mystic Roquette Category:Soviet